The Real Reason You’re Not Allowed To Work From Home

If you don't trust yourself to lead, why should any customer, employee or shareholder trust you?

It is rather extraordinary, particularly given the advances of the internet which extend even to video-conferencing for multiple people, that more companies won’t allow employees to work from home. The infrastructure is there, and the gains in efficiency and reductions in cost make it an obvious thing to do. Yet often it does not.

“The real reason you’re not allowed to work from home is that managers at all levels are fearful of change and especially fearful of change that requires them to step out of their comfort zone.”

This is perhaps particularly the case in workplaces where the leaders recognize their own incompetence and wish to cover their inadequacy through displays of authority. Yet this failure to trust necessarily erodes the working relationship and creates a cycle of mutual suspicion and insistence for trust that neither party actually feels the other merits.

“Leaders who cannot trust themselves enough to hire people they can trust will always revert to power and control mechanisms, including forcing people to drive a car or take a train to work every day so that their supervisors can keep an eye on them.”